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Entrepreneurship Is A Family Affair

You may believe starting your own business will have no effect on the people closest to you, but it will. That is a lesson Laura Drewry learned quickly when she decided to buy an existing business reports The Globe and Mail.

After the store reopened, Ms. Drewryâ€™s husband, Ron, let her â€œjust get on with it,â€ putting his focus on his own full-time work in construction. Her sons, now aged 10, 12 and 15, suddenly found their former stay-at-home mom much less available to them. â€œThere was a real adjustment needed by them,â€ she says.

Ms. Drewryâ€™s experience is far too typical for many entrepreneurs, says Judi Cunningham, executive director of the Sauder School of Businessâ€™s Business Families Centre at the University of British Columbia.

The time, financial, energy and emotional commitments required to build a business will easily move beyond its walls and into the family home â€“ yet many entrepreneurs donâ€™t take into account how much the people they live with will be affected by their decision to start a new business.

â€œThere is a romance around being an entrepreneur,â€ Ms. Cunningham says. â€œSometimes people arenâ€™t prepared for what it is really like.